First Time For Everything

Female Wild Turkey on nest

I have spent the last several days up in Ontario’s Muskoka region opening up the family cottage. Aside from the regular chores of opening weekend, I made time for visits to my favorite frog pond in the forest to photograph chorusing Grays Treefrogs, take my daughter in the canoe to a nearby wetland to see what was new in there this spring, my daughter also decided that it was a perfect day for swimming, jumping off the dock, and practicing her doggy paddle in the frigid water, and of course take my dog for several long walks. It was during one of these walks on Friday afternoon that something caught my eye at the base of a massive, rocky outcrop near the entrance to our cottage lot. Something looked different, not quite right, and certainly out-of-place as I remembered it. And then as my eyes adjusted to what I was seeing before me, I made out a female Wild Turkey sitting among the leaf litter. She was not at all alarmed to see me and my dog walk past her at only a distance of about 15 feet. My dog was oblivious to her on the ground and I figured that the turkey was probably quite comfortable with how well concealed she was on the forest floor. I concluded that she was probably sitting on a clutch of eggs. What surprised me most was that every time I passed by her over the course of several days, during the dog walks, she was always in the exact same position on the nest. I have explored the woodlands in this region for over 30 years and not once have I ever seen a Wild Turkey in the vicinity of the cottage and today there is one nesting right on our lot. Nature never ceases to amaze me, but I do wish this turkey had selected a more photogenic location for nesting .

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Nesting Great Blue Herons

Juvenile Great Blue Herons on nest

Recently I became aware of a small heronry that consists of 3 nests thus far not too far from the family cottage near Parry Sound, Ontario. I drove down the highway to the location early one morning last weekend for a few photos. The juveniles are still at the nests, but are almost as large as the adults now. I counted a total of 8 young birds on the three nests. These nests are in tall dead trees standing in a large beaver pond. Usuing my 80-400mm VR lens I was still a little short for the composition I was hoping for. The solution here was to mount my camera on my tripod without the legs extended for maximum stability. Since the highway is high above the beaver pond I was still shooting straight at the nest. Next I selected the mirror lock-up feature to minimize vibrations from the slapping action of the mirror and thus render a sharper image. I then waited for three pleasing head angles from the juvenile birds. Once I shot the sharpest image possible I cropped it slightly for the composition I was hoping for and evicted some distracting elements from the background to render a more pleasing image. These distracting elements were removed by using a variety of quick masks and clone stamp tool. The original capture can be seen below.

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